Professional lacrosse’s new Metro Vancouver team starts NLL season Saturday

The Vancouver Stealth’s new National Lacrosse League season starts in Colorado against the Mammoth on Saturday. Stealth players Mike Grimes and Kyle Sorensen sport the team’s new jerseys.

Photograph by: Vancouver Stealth
, stealthlax.com

METRO VANCOUVER — A new sporting era in Langley gets underway on Saturday.

That’s when the Vancouver Stealth, who relocated from Everett, Wash., to Langley during the summer, open their National Lacrosse League season in Colorado against the Mammoth.

The Stealth’s season opener on Saturday will be broadcast on TSN2 at 6 p.m. (Pacific)

The following Saturday, Jan. 11, fans from Langley, across B.C., and Washington State will have their first opportunity to see the professional squad play live when the Stealth hosts the Minnesota Swarm at the Langley Events Centre.

Head coach Chris Hall said he’s excited to get started, and what initially seemed like a long off-season has quickly crept up on him.

“It always seems like training camp is interminable,” he told the Langley Advance in a Dec. 27 phone interview. “It seems so long ago, now. Now it’s almost like we’re running out of time. Our first game is in Denver next weekend.”

He added, “you’re always anxious for the season to get started once you’ve endured training camp. You play sports to play the games.”

The long wait for pro lacrosse to return to B.C. is over. The Vancouver Ravens had a three-year stint in NLL, playing out of the then-General Motors Place from 2002 to 2004, before having to close up shop because of financial difficulties.

Now it’s up to the fans to come out to games, something Hall hopes won’t be a problem.

“It’s been a long wait for fans and players in the Lower Mainland to have a team come back,” he said.

“We’re really excited to unveil the new franchise and get going.”

Hall said the facilities at the LEC and the way the Township has taken the team “under its wing” has impressed him.

“We are more than thrilled with the facilities we have to work with, and we love the rink, so we’re anxious to get started,” he added.

However, other sports teams have been surrounded by swaths of blue seats disguised as fans during past games inside the LEC’s arena bowl.

Asked if he believes fans will come out to Stealth games, Hall answered, “I hope so.”

He noted that, even for fans who live as far away as North Vancouver, the Langley Events Centre is a relatively short hop for them, travel-wise.

“With the new highway [design], it’s pretty easy to get around the Lower Mainland,” he said. “There’s no reason why we won’t draw fans from Richmond, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge ... everywhere.”

The local squad will once again look to challenge for the Champion’s Cup this year. On May 11, 2013, at the LEC, the Stealth lost 11-10 to the defending titleholder Rochester Knighthawks in the NLL championship game.

Referring to the Champion’s Cup, Hall said the mission is the same for everyone in the league, but he’s not a huge advocate of goal-setting.

“I’m more of a ‘preparer,’ ” he said. “If we’re well prepared in every facet, and motivated, then performance is a natural result.”

The Stealth hopes to once again vie for the NLL title this spring, and the team has a number of veterans and an infusion of youthful talent to hopefully get it there.

Emerging from the 40-player training camp is the Stealth’s top draft choice, six-foot, 185-pound forward Cody Bremner from Victoria.

Bremner was the club’s first-round pick (eighth overall) in the 2013 NLL Entry Draft and is coming off an impressive Western Lacrosse Association season in which he lead the Nanaimo Timbermen in points with 54, on 28 goals and 26 assists.

Bremner is joined by fellow draft pick Tyler Digby (20th overall), a 6-3, 230-pound forward from New Westminster, who caught the coaching staff’s attention at camp,

“Digby was impressive, he’s a big body with great soft hands and he really confirmed our expectations,” Hall said.

Also adding to the list of newcomers are free agent forwards Sean Lundstrom (a Langley native who played for the Langley Jr. Thunder of the B.C. Junior A Lacrosse League) and Alex Gajic (from Burnaby).

The four new forwards will add to an already potent offence which returns a number of big offensive weapons starting with the team’s top scorer from last season, Rhys Duch.

Now with a fifth NLL season under his belt, Duch has 440 regular season points (188 goals, 252 assists) and sits second on the Stealth’s all-time points list.

Asked if he feels added pressure as the Stealth’s offensive leader, Duch, who led the league in goals last season with 45, said he doesn’t “feel any more pressure than anyone else on the team.”

“Do I want to be one of the go-to guys? Yes,” he added.

Duch will be joined up front by two returning players: Cliff Smith, who is coming off a career season with 15 goals and 30 assists in the regular season, and Lewis Ratcliff, who is sixth on the NLL’s all-time goals list with 411.

In just four seasons with the team, Ratcliff sits fourth on the Stealth’s all-time goals list and earned himself a Champion’s Cup MVP in 2010, as he led the Stealth to its first NLL title.

Ratcliff knows the LEC well, having played there in 2012 as a member of the Mann Cup finalist Langley Thunder of the WLA.

“Obviously I’m excited to be able to play in front of familiar fans,” he said. “It should be a cool atmosphere.”

Looking ahead to this season, Ratcliff said the Stealth is coming to Langley as an established franchise.

“I’m excited to get started,” he said.

Balancing out the forwards on the active roster for the Stealth this season is Brett Hickey, who spent all of last season on the team’s practice roster.

On defence, Burnaby’s Ilija Gajic, who was acquired in an off-season trade, adds to an already solid defensive core.

In goal the Stealth have Tyler Richards and 12-year veteran Matt Roik to round out their back end.

Richards was one of the league’s top goaltenders last season, posting a 10.92 goals against average. He also sits second on the Stealth’s all-time saves list with 2,089 stops.

“Our defence is intact from last year,” Hall said. “We’ve added one guy, and he’s a pretty good guy in Ilija Gajic. So we’ve got one addition from last year. We have a solid defence, a good, solid mix of experience and youth. It’s also nice to know our goaltending is good with Richards and Roik.”

As fast and offensively orientated a league as the NLL is, games are still won by great goaltending and rock-solid defence, Hall stressed.

“With championship teams, their backbone is great goaltending and good, aggressive defence. I think we have that.”

The team’s roster will also include two players on the injured reserve roster in Brett Bucktooth from Nedrow, N.Y., and Port Perry, Ont., native Mitch McMichael.

One of the team’s standout rookies from last year, Tim Henderson (Tully, N.Y.), will remain on the holdout list for the season, as he’s currently serving in the United States military.

Meanwhile, Hall said his team will play an up-tempo, aggressive style.

“I like players that have size and athleticism, who like to run and like to play an up-tempo style of lacrosse,” he said. “We’ll run out of the back end a lot and play a very quick transition game with a lot of ball movement. We have some big boys on team, too, and I like our size.”

Langley is already home to a pair of high level lacrosse teams in the form of the BCJALL’s Jr. Thunder and WLA’s Thunder.

Hall is very familiar with the WLA, having played nine seasons as a member of the Victoria Shamrocks, before taking on head coaching duties in B.C.’s capital.

Hall led the ’Rocks to a Mann Cup victory in 1983, his rookie year as the team’s head coach.

With all due respect to senior A lacrosse, Hall said there is a huge difference between the two leagues.

“It’s two totally different entertainment packages,” Hall said. “In the NLL, rules are more conducive to a more fast-paced, spectator-friendly game.”

He added that the NLL is more than a game — it’s an entire entertainment package.

“It’s more of an NBA-style production than anything else,” he said.

Enhancing the league is the players, who are the best in the world at what they do.

“They’re also incredible athletes,” Hall added. “These guys are in phenomenal condition. You can’t not be in peak physical condition and survive in this league, it’s way too high of a pace, way too quick. The sheer physical condition of these athletes are equal to the best of the best professionals [athletes in other sports].”

Duch said, “This is an opportunity to see lacrosse at its highest level.”

FINAL BUZZER: Following the Jan. 11 home debut, the Stealth returns to the LEC on Friday, Jan. 17 to take on Colorado. Game time is 8 p.m.

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